AZCIR Senior Reporter Evan Wyloge won an FOI Award for his reporting on the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office spending nearly $500,000 to design a campaign finance website that was never used. Acting on a tip, Wyloge sought records from the office of Secretary of State Michele Reagan. Although the office was initially unwilling to discuss the project or acknowledge how much had been spent, the records showed that the website was built and, inexplicably, never used.

AZCIR reporters Emily Mahoney and Agnel Philip also won an FOI Award for their extensive use of public records in a groundbreaking analysis of Arizona’s civil asset forfeiture program. After building a database of all law enforcement agency expenditures of seized assets, Mahoney and Philip discovered that roughly 10 percent of all such expenditures in a five-year period, or $20 million, was not properly reported. Policymakers concluded that more oversight was needed, and consequently HB 2477 passed the Legislature nearly unanimously and became law in August.

AZCIR also won two first-place awards for its work.

Crystal’s Cage, the harrowing tale of the life and death of a three-year-old girl and the twenty-year investigation that followed, by Justin Price, Brandon Quester and Evan Wyloge, won first place for investigative reporting among daily publications with a circulation under 25,000.

Success!

Support AZCIR today

AZCIR is your source for fact-based, independent investigations that make a difference in Arizona. Know what’s happening in Arizona by signing up for our free newsletter, and you’ll be notified every time we have a new story.